


Day 132

by PennySerenade



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Family Feels, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Growing Up, mentions of Mike - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-02
Updated: 2017-11-02
Packaged: 2019-01-28 15:59:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12610264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PennySerenade/pseuds/PennySerenade
Summary: During their year together, Chief Hopper must deal with Eleven growing up in the cabin.





	Day 132

**Author's Note:**

> I just thought that this was something that was bound to happen, since Hopper was the only person in her life for awhile. Also it was hilarious when he got all dad-worried over her dark makeup.

The cabin had to be swept often, or it would become musty inside. The fireplace was the main source of warmth, but it created a lot of dust. The broom went back and forth with her hands. Palms sweaty. It would be easier to do it in her head. It's a simple action to mimic, since he showed her how to clean.

Well it's not like she hasn't tried – “ _Hey kid, you know you do have two hands.”_  
  
So she began filling her day with those hands. Turning pages manually, popping on records, making lunch – _“Real lunch, El.”_  
  
But the TV was still in her head. The screen made sense. The Morse code too. From her seat on the couch she would make it click back and forth. Like the sweep of her broom – except not for the hands.  
  
Today was like every other day. Boring afternoon. Day 132.

Except when he came home – Jim Hopper. Though she hardly called him that. She doesn't really know _what_ to call him. The strangest man. 

But when he’s near, she’s happy. Like her heart isn’t completely broken; just fractured. They mostly talk. He quizzes her on songs and books. He taught her how to do things; like how to make scrambled eggs. He brought games and homework to fill her busy head - _"it's called sudoku, you'll be good at it."_

She wasn't, not yet, but it made her smile when she'd watch his brow furrow over the puzzling numbers, and muttering under his breath. 

But today felt strange. Hopper had left in a hurry for work, so she snuck more Eggos despite his numerous attempts to go easy and eat - “ _some actual food, please.”_

As if microwaved meals were _real._ The leftover scraps from Mike’s family dinners were more desirable. But, overall, it was better than the food at Papa’s lab - because the reward treats didn't count - they were too infrequent. Eleven guesses she doesn’t mind microwaved corn and peas if it meant that Hopper sat across the table. The strange and funny man. And the sad eyes. Sometimes like hers.

Still, this didn’t stop her from eating 3 more Eggos. And now her lower stomach felt funny. Eleven wonders if he was maybe right all along about the eating? Sickness doesn’t usually affect her this easily. She remembers the weeks spent in the cold winter; ignoring her body's aching pain.

She stops her daily chores and lays on the old couch. Clenches her eyes and drifts away. There’s not always enough to do during the day and sleep comes easily. Even if nightmares beckon her with faces of the dead. Sometimes the many (too many) faces she’s killed.

Blood everywhere. Blood down her nose.

Broken necks.

 _Their_ fault.

 _Her_ fault.

 _“Eleven!”_ a distant voice calls.

“I'm sorry!” she screams, jumping from the couch. She had learned to apologize a very long time ago - _"Sorry, Papa."_

Except it’s only a dream, but she can’t shake the strange feeling in her body. A vibrant pain. Standing up, she suddenly feels the dampness below. Did she wet herself? When she was little and awoke from lab experiments, it was often to the discovery of urine soaked pants. 

But now it feels too heavy, so Eleven drops her jeans. And there it is on her underwear – blood. The blood from her dreams? 

Did _she_ make this happen?

“No, no.”

And her devastation increases when she searches from where the blood comes from. Why is this happening?

_Why?_

She’s been horribly wounded. Somehow, someway.

Eleven stretches out her hand out and compels her mind to stop this disaster immediately. There’s no longer a flow down her legs but when she feels her wound, the blood is still there. She hasn’t gotten rid of it.

“Stop!” she screams.

Is a monster from the upside down living within her, killing her from the inside? Is this all because of Papa’s tests? Will she die?

Eleven showers, quickly scrubbing herself clean. When the water is no longer red from her legs, she sees no more blood. It must have stopped – for whatever reason. Her ragged breath begins to slow. Maybe it's over, maybe it's over.

She steps cautiously into her room, adrenaline releasing like hot air.

And then it's dripping down her leg again. The starkness of red against snowy skin; the pigments contrasting terribly because she has barely seen the sun in months. She never will again. At least not like how she wanted to - pictures of kids on the TV running around in the sunlight. Friends all around.

“Why?” she cries.

Why her? Why always _her_?

With two shaking hands, she puts the stained pants back on. What’s the point if she’s going to ruin a new pair? What’s the point if she’s just going to die anyway.

“No.”

No. She’s doesn’t want to die like this – halfway humiliated to death. She’ll find anything she can before that happens. And fix this.

Turning on the TV, she puts the blindfold on. Clears her mind, wipes it clean. Till there’s nothing left except darkness. So much darkness. It keeps coming, feeling it whip against her hands.

She runs from place to place. To moments where her name surely must be mentioned somewhere by one of the several government officials who tried to take her down. Someone must know _something;_ some file hidden away that would have predicted this inward destruction of hers.

But nothing.

No one is talking about her - not even Mike - even if it’s too early for his daily radio call.

No hidden, secret moment that could explain such a disaster. 

Wet eyes soak the blindfold. She’s lost, and the darkness is too heavy. She's falling backwards and sideways and her stomach sinking like a doomed ship. The TV zaps off and Eleven tumbles back to reality.

There’s nothing left she can do. Nothing left except to die. She just hopes that Jim Hopper comes home to say goodbye before she goes. Clicks away at the morse code like it's a message in a bottle.

So she leans against the wall of the cabin and waits.

* * *

 

“Night Flo,” Hopper says, waving goodbye over his shoulder to the surly secretary.

“Early day tomorrow,” she calls after him.

But he’s already out the door.

When he'd gotten off an hour early, Hopper wastes no time racing home. To the hidden girl stowed away like some fairy tale. Except it’s no tall tale; with real-life magical powers, monsters waiting to gobble her up, and all that shit. He drives fast all the way home.

Till he’s tapping their secret knock.

Once.

Twice.

No answer.

“El, c’mon,” he halfway whispers. He wasn’t naturally talented at whispering. Always present was a level of volume that could never quite escape.

Hopper taps harder. Until the door is swinging open in a great big hurry. He searches for her tiny stature, usually sitting on the couch or looking bored at the table. But Eleven isn’t there. She’s huddled on the floor, next to the corner wall.

“What’s wrong?” He’s rushing forward, immediately dropping down in front of her. Instantly forgetting how he was going to rub in the fact that he's home early today.

Tear stains were present along with red eyes – how long had she been crying?  
  
"I'm dying," she murmurs. Quietly informing him; an apology in her sad voice.  
  
"What do you mean you're dying?" He raises his own voice, looking and seeing no visible threat. But he knows that not everything that goes on with her is _visible_.  
  
"Bleeding to death.."  
  
Eleven thinks about all the blood she's seen in her life. The soldiers in the school, the demogorgon’s feasts on the people of Hawkins, Papa's experiments... If blood doesn't stop then you die.  
  
" _What?_ What happened?"

Then he stretches out one hand to her cheek and the other to her shoulder. Inspecting her. He sounds so upset and worried that her heart breaks for him. 

Her friend. He would miss her, she knows that. She's seen enough of the world - like Mike’s parents and family all matched up. Couples and their kids. Yet he was all alone, so evidently. Until her. She knew her Mike would be taken care of, but who would watch after Hopper?  
  
So she moves her long flannel shirt out of the way to show the humiliating red stains on her jeans below. She still can’t believe this is how it would happen – after _everything_.  
  
"Oh shit," Hopper falters, looking down.  
  
"Sorry." She turns away, it's too difficult.   
  
"No, uh,  _no_ you're not dying. You're gonna be fine."  
  
His hands doing most of the explaining. Her senses feel a different energy around him. A tense nervousness was very alive, but the fear was gone.  
  
"I should.." He starts to stand, and then swiftly crouches back down, almost in her face. "Wait, would you rather I explain things first or go get you, uh, stuff to deal with this?"  
  
"What?" she asks, confused by his reaction. Her tears momentarily on halt.

How should he handle this situation?

Hopper completely forgot about this part of life when bringing home the girl like a puppy off the street. In fact, it didn’t even register on his list of necessities. He’d bought supplies of non-perishable foods and stocked up on groceries as often as possible. Hauled in stacks of books and games and records. A hairbrush for that crazy growing hair of hers. Toothbrushes so she wouldn’t get cavities. Toilet paper. Towels. Security systems so she wouldn’t be found. Set up the Morse code so they can always communicate. Kid stuff for this girl. 

Yet, he still managed to scar the poor kid. He feels like a jackass.

But what could he have done – maybe brought in a woman to do this job for him? He almost wishes he could; Joyce would definitely help. But it’s too risky for anybody to know, especially the Byers boys who’d alert their gaggle of friends and come running down to the cabin like it's a school trip. Then who knows who might be coming afterwards – Brenner and the rest of those evil sons of bitches.

"Look you're not dying, alright?" He rubs his hair. "Don't cry. You're just growing up, is all."  
  
"What?" she repeats.

How does one explain this? It’s not really a conversation he ever knew he’d be having – a girl who had _absolutely_ _no_ _idea_ of what was going on with her body. He should have thought of bringing home one of those ridiculous pamphlets that explains everything better than he can.  
  
"This is just something that eventually happens to women," Hopper quickly clarifies.  
  
Then looks up in an angry realization. “Not that you are one yet," he shouts, and points at her. "This is just one of the many things it can take.. "

But her eyes are huge with disbelief.  
  
So he stops; not knowing where to go. It would be bad enough to tell this to another girl, but everything is another universe for El. She's kind of like an alien attempting to adapt among humans. Eager to belong, but still trying to catch up. _Or maybe_ , Hopper thinks, she’s just a starved kid who's been kept hungry and locked away all her life.

"You know how kids grow up into men and women?"  
  
She nods.  
  
"Well this is part of the process for girls.. I guess."  
  
"Why blood.." Her voice muffled from her face pressed against curled up knees. 

"It’s the body clearing and sorting things out from inside," he says, trying hard to think back to his shitty health class in high school. Or his ex-wife’s sparse attempts to include him in on the whole process before Sarah was born.

“The body?”

She’s so confused. If this is normal why didn’t anyone ever tell her about it? So she could know not to be worried? It doesn’t feel _normal_ at all.

“Yeah, the organs inside,” He looks away. “You know how men and women have different bodies, well you have different parts inside. That’s why it’s happening to you.”

“Different than you?”

“Yeah,” he dimly answers. This must be his weirdest conversation of the day – and he basically talks to crazy people for a living.

"Why from _there_?" she pointedly asks. The blood.  
  
His face feels hot, his ears growing pink.  
  
"Cause it means," he starts, momentarily wondering if he should just lie. "That someday in the way, way, way future.. you.. can have a baby."  
  
Eleven stares at him, shocked, her fear on pause like she might start bleeding from her nose too.  
  
"If you want," he says, motioning to her with a flimsy hand.  
  
A baby?

"Me?" she whispers. A baby. 

_Do I have a mother?_

_Yeah of course you have a mother – you couldn’t really be born without one._

Her mother was gone. But once upon a time she was somewhere. Somewhere out in the world. And somewhere, inside, El had changed. And now knowing all of this, she felt a moment of closeness to the mother she never knew.  
  
"How does a baby.."  
  
"No no, _whoa_  that's a story for a different day," he says, with urgent resistance.  
  
Maybe he'll just get some books from the library so she can read about it. Yet, something tells Hopper that he’ll be the one re-explaining things and he tries not to cringe at the thought. Because this is what he signed up for. There’s going to be a whole mess of questions coming soon enough. All starting from this day.

Still, he doesn’t regret it even if he _really_ , really, really feels like flipping on the TV and changing the conversation. He can’t mess up her life even more than what’s been done to her.  
  
"So I'm gonna make a run to the store to get some supplies."

“Supplies?” she asks, still quiet.

“Oh,” he pauses. “You’ll.. so you can put it..”

Actually... he’ll just give her the directions. He doesn’t have to be _completely_ perfect. “Just stuff so you won’t have a mess, I’ll get enough to last a few months.”  
  
He'll have to go to the convenient store out of town, because in this small-town word gets around in an instant. Hopper could lie and say it was for a girlfriend, but he didn't want to keep up the hassle.  
  
"How long?" she cries.  
  
_Oops_.  
  
"Oh I forgot... it’ll only last a couple of days. But it’ll happen every month.. I mean like every 30 days or so." He squints, feeling like he's delivering a punishment. Like it's his fault.

"Every 30 days?" Eleven's face pales.  
  
"But you'll get used to it." He tries to reassure her. "Eventually it'll become old news."

Maybe. Hopefully. He doesn't really know.   
  
"Weird," she's says, quiet again. But he can hear the pout.  
  
"Yeah."  
  
She remains sitting on the floor looking pensive. Now that she wasn’t dying she tries to adjust to the idea of living with this new… thing.  
  
"Well," he announces. Patting her knee awkwardly then finally standing to his full height. "I'll be back soon."  
  
"Hm," she mutters, lost in thought.  
  
"Hey kid."  
  
She turns to him. 

"Bet you miss being _eleven_ right?" He jokes, smiling awkwardly. "Get it?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Cause you're twelve and got all this going on, but you're name still.."  
  
She looks at him strangely. "You know your age," he sighs.  
  
"Day 4534."  
  
"Yeah twelve," he states, giving up on the ill-timed joke. "Okay, I'm gonna go."  
  
El feels panic run through her while watching him head for the door knob. Left behind again. Even if he was trying.  
  
"Wait," she calls.  
  
"Yes?" 

There's bags under his eyes. She knew that was a sign of exhaustion. Sleep.

"Can I?" 

It's always that. The outside.  
  
"You know the rules," he says gruffly.  
  
She turns her head back to the wall.  
  
"El, its for your own good – go clean up and I'll be back soon."  
  
"Be back soon," she parrots.  
  
"I promise."  
  
He always promised.


End file.
